Megan: We believe some introductions are in order. That’s probably the most fitting beginning to nearly everything, right?
Hilary: We are a pair of roommates… we stumbled into a friendship (after going to an AA meeting together*) and now it’s almost three years later. We met in the teaching program at Brigham Young University in Utah.
Megan: *Note: We are not, nor have ever been, alcoholics. We were assigned to go to a community event for one of our classes in the teaching program aforementioned. The meeting proved to be very interesting however.
Hilary: (Well, yes. But I wanted to emphasize the weird beginnings.) Anyways, after graduation, we each began teaching middle school; I teach history, and Megan teaches both English and history. (Next year, however, I’ll be moving on to a new adventure… I’m sure we’ll talk more about that as time goes on, though.)
Megan: We moved out of Provo after graduation last summer to find our place in this crazy world outside of the BYU bubble.
Hilary: And frankly, for me at least, it’s been a little difficult. Which is why I am happy that this blog comes in. Without the structure and expectations of being in college, it’s been harder for me to feel like I am growing and developing as an adult. What guideposts or notches on my belt do I reach for next?
Megan: I agree. I feel like there are so many goals I want to accomplish and things I want to refine and learn that it became a necessity for me to get some outside motivation.
Hilary: This blog is really to hold us accountable; I’m excited to be able to look back and see a tangible beginning and ending point, to see some change in my life. I think writing about our new adventures on this blog will definitely help with that.
Megan: Exactly! So, speaking about the purpose of this blog… First, this is not a personal ad. Sorry to burst the bubble of any fellas who may be reading this. Despite the fact that, yes, we both are single, there’s more to this blog than that. It’s about our search for the right ones. That is, the right talents and abilities and skills to bring into our lives at this critical time of being in our twenties! Second, despite the imagery the title of this blog may have conjured up (i.e. two ladies sitting on a couch staring blankly at the ceiling when one of us says in a rather bumbling voice, “By George, I’ve got it! We should get some skills. You know? Become functioning members of society!), we are not totally skill-less. We are already very competent beings, we just want to be even MORE competent beings. Continual progression and all.
Hilary: Yes! During the creation of this blog, we were pretty inspired by a quote we heard from a friend; he said, “There is no comfort in growth, and there is no growth in comfort.” For someone who feels right at home never stepping out of her comfort zone, this got me feeling pretty shameful. As the blog idea was taking shape, I was reminded of a scripture we used in my days as an EFY counselor. As counselors, we modeled goals we set after those in Luke 2:52: “And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.”
Megan: So we’ve decided that the skills we choose to develop over the course of our forthcoming lives (and will be sharing with you via this blog) will be centered around the four main ideas we can pull out of that scripture:
Hilary: 1. Increasing in wisdom (intellectual skills or those based on gaining knowledge)
Megan: 2. Increasing in stature (physical, fitness, or nutrition-based skills)
Hilary: 3. Increasing in favour with God (spiritual skills and habits)
Megan: 4. Increasing in favour with man (social skills and other skills that will REALLY push us out of that curmudgeonly comfort zone).
Hilary: We feel that these four categories of skills represent the well-rounded way we want to improve our lives. We’ll each be taking on one skill in each category for a month (so, a total of 4 skills per month), at least for the summer. We like to call it, the Summer of Skills.
Megan: Each Summer Skill (doesn’t it kind of sound like saying “summer school” with an accent…?) we take on will be documented here! We would also love to interact with our readers often. We have set up email, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest to share ideas with you and for you to share ideas with us. We’d eventually like to see this be a community of people all developing awesome skills together!
Hilary: So the whole world may become more skillful. We may even feature nun-chuck skillz, bow hunting skillz, computer hacking skillz…
Megan: Precisely. I mean, who doesn’t like someone with skills? Really, we’re just trying to become better human beings, the value in which Napoleon clearly sees as well.
Hilary: So we hope you’ll follow along with us as we seek inspiration and get to growing.
Megan: Let us commence the skill search in 3…2...1... Engage!
